Also in the A Sense of Place series
Fly Fishing in Montana
(00:30:01)
From: Helen Borten
An ancient pastime explored in the lives, lore and literature of anglers.
House of the Lord
(00:29:33)
From: Helen Borten
The history of a black church on an antebellum plantation and how it was saved from destruction.
The Children of Logan
(00:28:58)
From: Helen Borten
The producer returns to her Philadelphia home and finds hope amid the ruins. The life and death of an inner city neighborhood.
Vietnamese Homecoming Part Two
(00:29:01)
From: Helen Borten
Conflict breaks out between the Vietnamese and Cajun shrimpers and the fate of both hangs in the balance.
Vietnamese Homecoming Part One
(00:29:07)
From: Helen Borten
Fishermen and their families escape from Vietnam to a new home in Louisiana and struggle to earn a living along the Gulf Coast.
Summer Camp
(00:29:03)
From: Helen Borten
From the mouths of kids and the memories of grownups comes a rambunctious portrait of a peculiarly American institution.
Sunset Hall
(00:28:57)
From: Helen Borten
Leftist causes continue to invigorate residents of a Los Angeles retirement home for radicals.
Lost in America
(00:28:59)
From: Helen Borten
Drug addicts, a prostitute and a blind woman recount their journeys through homelessness to a new life.
Broadway Memories
(00:29:35)
From: Helen Borten
From a riot in 1849 to today’s regulars at Barrymore’s Bar, how a street became the universal symbol of live theater.
Nightfall in Chester County
(00:29:29)
From: Helen Borten
In Pennsylvania farmland that was the first stop on the Underground Railroad, a strike by Mexican mushroom pickers polarizes a Quaker community.
Related Pieces
Piece Description
"Hollow Victory" was included in the second season of A SENSE OF PLACE, distributed by PRI in 2001. It is a David and Goliath story about people living in the hollows of West Virginia and fighting Big Coal in an attempt to save their homes, their streams and their mountains. The battle against "mountaintop removal", the strip mining technique that blows off mountaintops, also pits miners against former miners and miners' widows and reaches the federal courts where, even today, it remains stalled. One :30 promo (click "listen" page, promo labeled "Segment 2")
2 Comments
|
Review of Hollow Victory
Missing toes, internal hemorrhaging, black lung, eating flour and sugar for dinner: the life of West Virginian miners. This sounds straight out of Steinbeck, and like Steinbeck Helen Borten explores the economic problems of rural labor , the political power of the bullying coal industry. Unlike Steinbeck , Borten's piece is not nearly as aggressive in its social criticism. Rather, her investigative reporting is so thorough and her interviewees so compelling, that the listener is sufficiently equipped to draw his /her own conclusions.
When would you broadcast a piece that explores the darker side of American industry, the realities of the working poor? Well, that's the beauty of an election year because just about anything that's political is relevant. This would also work nicely if you paired it with another piece from Borten's series to make a one-hour show. Another option for broadcast is Labor Day but why wait it's six months when this resonates today? |
Of 6 purchasers of this piece...
- 4 also bought:
The Last Place: Diary of a Retirement Home (00:27:24) - 4 also bought:
- 3 also bought:
Heartland Medicine (00:28:57) - 3 also bought:
Movin' Out the Bricks (00:27:46) - 3 also bought:Nightfall in Chester County (00:29:29)
Laura Herberg
Posted on December 01, 2008 at 12:00 AM | Permalink
Nice intro to a topic that needs to be shared.
This is a nice introduction/overview to a huge problem that I feel few Americans, outside of Appalachia, have actually heard of, which is absolutely astounding! I was first introduced to the issue of Mountain Top Removal in the Summer of 2008, while browsing free on-demand documentaries in my home town of Seattle, WA. After watching a documentary about it, I was shocked that the issue had been going on so long but I had never heard about it. I recently moved to West Virginia as an AmeriCorps VISTA Volunteer and I will tell you that this is a huge issue, one that partitions the state the way that the mountains were meant to, but may not for much longer. I think your listeners, wherever they may be, and whichever side they'll end up standing on, will thank you for exposing them to this issue.